The European Commissioner stated that “Portugal is not without funds” and that there is still time for the community framework for the period between 2021 and 2027, the so-called 2030, since, so far, only one European Union country “has completely closed the negotiations".

“I think that, at the moment, there is no critical situation, we made for these contracts the multi-annual partnership agreements of 21/27, the only country that has already completely closed the negotiations was Greece, already last summer”, she concluded.

Elisa Ferreira stressed that “Portugal is not without funds, it had emergency funds, structural funds that were reprogrammed” to respond to the covid-19 pandemic.

In addition, “exceptional funds are still ongoing to reinforce the previous framework” to complete the 2014/2020 community framework, which still has money.

For the European Commissioner, “what is important is that the year 2022 does not go by without making important leaps in the negotiation of the framework for 2021/2027”.

“There are negotiations, there are discussions between the European Commission and the Portuguese entities, this should be accelerated, so that in the year 2022 these negotiations will be closed”, she concluded.

For the commissioner, what is important, at the moment, is that “there is a public discussion about what you want to do with these increased funds”.

“What you are going to do is much more important than this craving for money”, she considered.

For the head of Cohesion and Reforms, “the most important thing is to refocus public discussions, both at European level and in Portugal, on what we want to do and bet on the right vectors”